


the truth must dazzle gradually

by an_ardent_rain



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, JUST KISS ALREADY, Late Night Conversations, Post-Season/Series 03, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 12:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17683463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_ardent_rain/pseuds/an_ardent_rain
Summary: Post-finale, Alex and Strand have their dinner and wine, and conspicuously avoid talking about the future.





	the truth must dazzle gradually

**Author's Note:**

> Quiet screeching
> 
> Hello I’m sorry for this, I started writing it not long after the finale and I kept putting it aside and only just finally finished. It’s - if this gives you any idea about my feelings - only one of three pieces I wrote (read: started and never finished) about what happens after the end. I’m kind of proud that I finally got this finished after struggling with it for awhile so I thought I’d share. Please enjoy!
> 
> I just have SO MANY FEELINGS !!!
> 
> Title from Emily Dickinson

Strand cooks her dinner.

 

In this - as in everything, Alex thinks, with a swell of exasperation and something like fondness - he is supremely competent. He’s not wearing a tie, only a plain buttoned shirt with a subtle gray stripe that runs vertically along his torso, tracing him from collar to belt. He unbuttons the cuffs and rolls the sleeves up to his elbows, and his forearms are strong and dusted sparsely with dark hair.

 

Alex sits at the bar and watches him as he works. His face is stern and set, all his concentration on the task to which he has now thrown his full attention.  She takes a sip of the wine in front of her, then sets her glass back on the bar, her fingers trailing down the stem. Neither of them have much to say now, she thinks, at least nothing that feels safe to speak out loud.  The silence is stifling. 

 

“Hey,” she says, and Strand turns a little to look at her over his shoulder, his face close to a scowl.  He rarely smiles, always so serious, always intent on whatever task is at hand. Alex tries to smile for both of them.  “It’s… really quiet,” she says. His mouth opens, to dispute her claim, maybe, or attempt a conversation, but she stops him.  “Don’t you have music I could put on? Just for a little background noise?”

 

“There is a stereo, I believe,” Strand says, in his usual imperious way, looking around his kitchen with drawn brows.  He sets down the chef’s knife he’d been using and strides over to a small wicker basket sitting under a corner cabinet.  He fishes out a small black remote and points it somewhere behind Alex. Soft, bluesy music starts playing, something intimate and instrumental.  It’s almost too perfect, Alex thinks, and she raises an eyebrow at him, unable to stop the sly curl of her mouth. Strand’s gaze falls to her half-smile and he blinks, then pushes his glasses up with the blunt tip of his finger and tosses the remote into the basket and turns back to his cooking.  “I assume that will be sufficient?” he asks.

 

“Yep,” Alex says, watching his shoulders as he picks up his knife and continues chopping the potatoes.  “Definitely sufficient.”

 

She’s finished with her glass of wine by the time the meal is ready, the kitchen filled with the smell of succulent chicken, crisp potatoes, and peppers and onions.  Strand plates Alex’s meal first, and places it in front of her along with a fork and a paper napkin. She pours herself another glass of wine as he gets his own food.  

 

“Where’s your glass?” she asks, pointing towards the bottle of wine.  He grabs it from the counter and she pours him a glass as well. 

 

“Thank you.”  He nods. Instead of sitting down in the stool beside hers, he’s standing across from her, leaning down a little with one hip against the bar.  “Enjoy.”

 

“Smells delicious,” she says.  He waits until she’s taken her first bite to start eating.  The music is still playing in the background and it makes things a little less awkward, cutting through what might otherwise be a meal in painful silence.

 

Not that it should be awkward, Alex thinks.  Their professional relationship has become tinged with the personal, almost indistinguishable from friendship.  Things have never felt awkward before, not unless one of them had done something to make it awkward. Dinner with a friend should be pleasant, not tense and expectant.

 

Alex chews and swallows and thinks  _ Expectant. _  That’s how she’s feeling.  Everything is weighty with anticipation.

 

“Everything good?” Strand asks, his voice tilted with a gentleness she doesn’t often hear there.  

 

“Yes.”  She smiles at him and their eyes meet.  “Thank you for cooking, this is much better than the burger I’d probably be picking up for myself otherwise.”

 

He shrugs one shoulder.  “Cooking isn’t difficult really, once you’ve mastered the basics.  And it’s a worthwhile skill to learn once you have access to your own kitchen.”  He takes another sip of wine and breaks her gaze. 

 

His eyes are stormy and uncertain, she thinks, and it isn’t hard to guess what’s on his mind.

 

“Well I have my own kitchen, and at least some willingness to learn.  But the energy to go shopping for ingredients? And then to actually cook once I get home, especially after a long day at work?”

 

“You are… very dedicated to your job.”  He almost smirks, the fullness of his bottom lip stretched into his cheek.

 

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she says back, voice light.  It isn’t as though she’s the only workaholic there.

 

“Well you should.  I meant it as one. You’re a fine journalist.  I… question your choice of topic, and perhaps your tendency to be less skeptical than you should be.  But you’re intelligent. Tenacious. I’ve come to respect you and your work a great deal.”

 

“Thank you, Richard.  That… means a lot.”

 

“I didn’t say it for thanks or commendation,” he tells her, gruff.  “I said it simply because it’s true.”

 

“Well even if you didn’t ask for gratitude, that doesn’t mean I can’t give it, right?”  She gives him a look and he sighs.

 

“Right.  I apologize, recent events have just… set me a little on edge.”  He laughs once, a dry sound, at the profound understatement of what he said.  “Maybe I just need more wine.”

 

“Your glass _ is _ empty,” she points out.  He pushes it towards her and she pours him a little more. 

 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, and he takes a drink, his head thrown back a little.  Hair falls over his forehead and idly he combs it back with his fingers.

 

Can’t this just be a normal night, Alex wonders, a nervous giddiness filling her.  She feels weightless - almost, she thinks, nerves and wine combining into a strange cocktail overtaking the fear and the anxious energy and the looming inevitability of the future that she should be feeling.  And isn’t that better, she wonders, this chaos that’s closer to happiness? A quiet mania bubbling up the longer she looks at Strand, the closer she comes to giving in to the urge to stop only looking?

 

“Thanks for dinner,” she says, dipping her head in a grateful bow.  “You outdid yourself.”

 

“It was really nothing special,” he says, but she thinks he might also be pleased.  “I wish I’d thought of dessert, too, but I’m not sure I have anything that would be appropriate.  Nothing that wouldn’t take too long to prepare, at any rate.”

 

“Ice cream?” Alex asks, hopeful.  “Or… cookies?”

 

He frowns, thinking.  “I might have fruit in the refrigerator.  Strawberries, I believe, though I bought them three or four days ago.  Or… Oh, actually, I do have something sweeter. I have some chocolate, one of those assorted boxes of different types of truffles.  I’m sure there’s enough left for you to have a very filling dessert.”

 

“That sounds perfect.  Thank you.”

 

“It’s no trouble, I doubt I’d finish them soon myself, anyway.  Let me get the kitchen cleaned up first, but…” He goes over to the pantry and after a moment of searching pulls out a plain white box.  “Here,” he says. “Feel free. You’re welcome to sit in here, or in the living room if you’d prefer.”

 

“Do you need any help?”

 

“No,” he tells her, shaking his head.  He picks the remote up and turns off the music.  The silence, again, feels heavy. “This won’t take long.”

 

“Well then I think I’ll take my chocolate and go curl up on the couch.”  She grabs the box and her wine glass and slides down off the bar stool.

 

“All right,” Stand says.  He grabs their plates, with only a few scraps left from dinner, and takes them over to the sink.  “As I said, I won’t be long. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

 

Alex walks through the kitchen doorway into the dark living room.  The only light is from a lamp beside the right arm of the couch, and it casts everything in a dull, golden glow.  She puts her glass down on a coaster on the coffee table, and settles into the buttery leather of the couch. There’s a maroon blanket thrown over the back and she pulls it down to cover her lap.  There’s a thick carpet covering the hardwood floor, and she takes her shoes off and pushes her feet into the plushness of the rug. There are sounds coming from the kitchen but for the most part it’s quiet.  Without Strand in the room, though, the quiet isn’t quite as stifling. It’s calming, without so much unsaid, so much they’re burying to keep the evening light and friendly. A friendly evening with Richard Strand.  After everything they’ve been through it seems almost off-key to end things with dinner, with something mundane and simple as their last hurrah.

 

Alex pushes those thoughts aside and opens the box, looking at the selection of dark, round chocolates nestled in their paper cups. Strand has only eaten four, apparently, leaving twelve untouched. She grabs one and pops it in her mouth. It’s rich, a creamy orange flavor.  Delicious, she thinks, letting the chocolate dissolve slowly on her tongue, savoring it. She pulls up her legs and tucks her feet under her body, adjusting the blanket to cover her. She eats another two chocolates before Strand appears, adjusting his glasses and looking weary. Alex scoots towards the end of the couch and he takes a seat beside her.  

 

“All done?”

 

“Yes,” he says. “All done. The kitchen is clean, and everything put away.”

 

She’s looking over the remaining truffles in the box, about to offer him one that looks particularly tempting, when he speaks again and rips off whatever bandage they’d put over the evening.

 

“Maybe it’s time we could… talk.  A little.”

 

Alex stops short and stares. “Sure,” she says, trying to recover after a moment of silence. “You’ve got to tell me where these chocolates came from.”

 

“Alex,” he says, soft, chastising. “That’s not what I meant.”

 

It’s the softness that gets to her.  He’s being placating, he’s being patient - qualities so far outside his normal sphere that it’s obviously just for her benefit.  To try to convince her to talk. How desperately, she wonders, does he want to? She sighs and sits back, sinking further into the couch, looking down instead of at Strand.  “Well that’s… all I really feel like talking about. I don’t think worrying, or  _ talking _ , or doing anything other than relaxing is going to be productive tonight.”

 

“I don’t know that we can ignore this.”  The patience is wearing away already. “You’re acting like this is… simple.”  He lifts his glasses and wipes tiredly at his eyes. “Like everything is decided, like this is some sort of solution.”

 

“Nothing’s simple,” she says, and immediately regrets it.  There’s no point to engaging, not now, not with this. They’d agreed, implicitly, to put this aside, and it’s annoying her that he’s breaking that agreement.  She bites her lip and crosses her arms over her chest. 

 

“The logistics alone,” Strand begins, but Alex cuts him off.

 

“I’m starting to think that your problem is you just don’t know how to relax.”

 

He lets out a breath of air that’s part laugh and more sigh.  “I won’t dispute that,” he says. “My work has a tendency to take over and I make little effort to prevent that.”

 

The silence falls again and Alex wonders if this will work, after all.  If they’ll ever be open and honest with each other, even for a simple evening at dinner.  And before she can stop herself she wonders what, come the morning, he will choose. She isn’t being exactly fair, and she knows it.  She’s already made her decision - the weight and the pain and the burden of choice are squarely on him.

 

“This is…”  He clears his throat and shifts, turning so his whole body is facing her.  Alex meets his eye. “You’ll go with me. Whatever I choose.”

 

There’s not a question there, at least not one she hears.  She only looks at him and again says “Yes.”

 

“And then…  if I choose…”  He laughs, bitter and hollow.  “If I choose  _ wrong _ ,” he says, self-conscious, acid in his voice, “if I choose Geneva, then what?  Will you still be there?”

 

“If we’re both left in the aftermath…  If there’s  _ anything _ left in the aftermath…  Yes. I’ll still be there.”  He looks unhappy, and Alex still doesn’t want to talk about this, doesn’t want to justify her choices or think about what’s going to happen after that huge, initial leap.  A coil of something heats in her chest, and she feels a sensation close to pain. “Where else would I go? I’m connected to this now, whether I wanted it or not. I’m a target.”

 

There’s more to it than that, further arguments she could make, but she doesn’t say anything else, staying miserably quiet for a long moment, until Strand sighs, and looks at her in a way he never has before.

 

“Running away won’t save you.  Our jobs, our responsibilities, our lives....  It won’t erase the worry. It won’t make things easier, or simpler.  It won’t give us answers.” When she doesn’t speak, he continues. “I need answers,” Strand says quietly.  He bends down, elbows on his knees, and stares at the carpet. “I don’t know that I can just… let that go. And if Coralee is…  If my  _ father _ is…”  He exhales through his nose, his hands clasped so tightly together his knuckles are white.  “I need answers,” he says again, and his voice is flat, full of a hard, uncertain sort of desperation.

 

_ It’s Strand _ , Alex hears in Simon’s voice, soft and dangerous.   _ It’s Strand _ , she thinks as she watches him, his gaze still on the carpet, his hands together, his shoulders bunched up, tense.  She doesn’t know what Simon meant. He’s too inscrutable, or giving her too much credit, or maybe, she thinks with a tightness in her throat, he’s just wrong.  Is Strand himself the key to unlocking the entire conspiracy? What exactly do they want with him? 

 

And what will she do if Strand decides to go to Geneva?

 

There are two plane tickets in her bag and she wants to show him, shove them in his arrogant face, prove that they have other options.  She can’t give him answers, but she might be able to help him find peace. To help him  _ survive,  _ if all her worst fears turn out to be right, if there really is a trap set that’s as deadly and inescapable as it seems.

 

_ Not answers.  But it might give us something _ , she thinks.  “We might stop the end of the world.  Or it might be the end of the world.” She smiles tightly, trying for levity, ignoring the tension like a sword dangling over them.  “It’s the end of something, at least.”

 

“Our time working on the podcast, if nothing else,” Strand says, his voice a low murmur.  He glances away and then back at her and she blinks, looking away to avoid meeting his eye.   “This is… quite final. I hadn’t really given it any thought before now, but. It’s going to be strange not to be doing this with you any more.”   

 

“I might believe you’d even miss it if you’d done anything besides complain about it.”  Almost constantly, she thinks. Vocally. And if he’d ever allowed for the possibility that maybe some of what he couldn’t explain was real.  

 

“I didn’t say I would be inconsolable over it,” he says.

 

He is frowning and Alex laughs.  He’s exasperated with her, clearly, but for a moment they settle into something approaching ease - Strand in a state of vague displeasure and Alex amused.

 

But he glances over at her again and she lets his gaze meet hers.  The moment lasts, stretching out until her amusement fades and his displeasure turns soft.  Something fragile knits between them and the easy feeling disappears. He wets his lips and when he speaks his voice is soft, full of something she’s not sure how to define.  

 

“I’m tired,” he says.  He stands up and stretches his neck.  “And I think you’re right. It’s time for bed - I need to get some rest and I’m sure you do, as well.”  He hesitates for half a second, and her eyes trace the shape of his face. “Talking isn’t going to be productive.”  

 

Alex almost laughs.   _ Talking. _  Talking is the last thing she wants to do now.  She’s looking up and him and she feels, suddenly, so very, very young.  She has to trust this man now, and whatever decision he makes - and has he already made it? - will decide the next course of their lives. 

 

He walks into the kitchen and turns off the light.  He moves over to the side of the couch and turns off the lamp.  It’s dark and Alex blinks, letting her eyes adjust.

 

Richard stands at the foot of the stairs, his face even and blank, and nearly impossible to read in the dim light of his living room.  “Well,” he asks as Alex stands. “Are you coming?”

**Author's Note:**

> that ending means what it means don’t @ me
> 
> Seriously though thanks for reading! Leave kudos and comments if you feel like doing so, I always appreciate it!


End file.
